Stop ride notice issued as major European brand recalls e-bike models over weak joint in frame

Orbea has announced a recall of 2019 and 2020 Optima urban e-bikes due to a potentially weak welded joint in the middle of the frame that could cause it to break while in use.

According to the UK government’s Office for Product Safety and Standards, which has issued a notice, affected consumers should stop riding the bike immediately and take it to their closest Orbea dealer for a replacement frame.

To check whether a bike is included in the recall, owners should locate the stamped code on frame – near the bottom of the seat tube below a bar code sticker – and If the code contains “19A”, it belongs to the affected batch and is subject to recall. The 19A characters will be within a longer sequence of alphanumeric characters such as the SNK1N19A featured in the circulated image.

The Optima has a step-through frame made from hydroformed aluminium tubing and is assisted by a Mahle Ebikemotion X35 250W rear-hub motor with a battery that’s integrated into the down tube. It was praised for its weight of around 17kg – light for a bike of this type.

There are Asphalt and Comfort versions of the Optima, which are both at risk.

We reached out to Orbea for more information about the recall – what caused the faulty joint, how many bikes are affected, are the affected frames distributed globally or just in the UK and European markets, why did it take six years for the fault to be discovered – but we haven’t received an answer as yet. If we do, we’ll update this story, but it’s standard practice for a brand to issue a recall notice and then not supply any more details beyond the official wording – which is perfectly clear.

However, law firm Leigh Day, the legal partner of British Cycling, ran the details of the recall on its website last month and included a quote from product safety solicitor Philippa Wheeler: “Structural failures in bicycles and e-bikes are particularly serious because riders can have little or no warning before a component fails. Cyclists rely on the safety of their bike when cycling, and catastrophic failures can cause serious and life-changing injuries.

“It is vital that anyone who owns an Orbea Optima e-bike checks whether their model is affected and stops riding it immediately if it is included in the recall. This is yet another reminder that consumers should be entitled to safe products from the point of purchase.”

At the beginning of the year Specialized issued a stop-ride notice for its Turbo Como SL urban step-through e-bike due to a potential for the head tube to crack, while at the end of 2025 Trek recalled around 700 electric gravel and road bikes due to an issue with chainring bolts.